"Why, he"s a German, isn"t he?"
"Yes, but I"m not! I"m as English as I possibly can be."
"Then how are you related to him?"
"He married my aunt."
"Oh!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "DO YOU KNOW THIS WOOD"S PRIVATE PROPERTY?" HE SHOUTED]
There was a long pause, and then Anthony volunteered:
"If Auntie Belle was to marry a German, I"d never call her "auntie"
again--never!"
"It was before the war, and she"s dead now," groaned Pamela. "Uncle Fritz has lived twenty years in England."
"How is it he"s not interned?" asked David.
"He"s naturalized, you see."
"Need you call him "uncle"?"
"I"d rather not, but I"ve got to. I"d never seen him till I came here a month ago."
"And you don"t like him?"
For answer, Pamela suddenly burst into a storm of pa.s.sionate tears.
"Like him! I hate him! Oh! why did we ever leave Canada and come to England? It"s wretched here, and I"m miserable. I"d like to run away!"
Then, dabbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief: "There, don"t take any notice of me, please. I get these fits sometimes. I"ll feel better soon. Please don"t talk any more to me about uncle."
The Watsons glanced at her compa.s.sionately, and began to converse among themselves upon other topics. Pamela stared hard out of the window, blinked, and presently regained her composure. When the train arrived at Harlingden, she and Avelyn walked to Silverside together, but they talked of school concerns, and did not reopen the subject of Mr.
Hockheimer.
Before this happening Avelyn, though she had been vaguely aware of Pamela"s existence, had not mentally singled her out among the general crowd of her schoolfellows. From that Monday morning she began to take an interest in her. She smiled at her when they pa.s.sed on the stairs, and spoke to her occasionally in the playground. As they were in different forms they had few opportunities of meeting, and even at dinner the boarders sat at a different table from the day girls. Avelyn looked out for Pamela on Friday afternoon, but she was not at the station. She had either left school early, or was travelling by a later train. She seemed such an attractive, pathetic little figure that Avelyn"s curiosity was aroused. She wanted to know where Pamela lived, and more about her. She cast round in her mind for any likely source of information, and decided upon Mrs. Garside, a fat kindly old soul, who owned a farm close to Walden, and was disposed to be neighbourly and talkative. On the excuse of going for the weekly b.u.t.ter she tapped at the house door, and was ushered in. Mrs. Garside was busy washing pots, but she placed a chair for her visitor, fetched the b.u.t.ter from the dairy, and, as she packed it in the basket, glided off into conversation. Once started, it was difficult to stop her, or to lead her away from the various topics upon which her tongue ran so glibly. It was only after much manoeuvring and a considerable amount of patience that Avelyn could get her to concentrate on the subject of Pamela Reynolds.
Even then her mind side-tracked.
"A young lady with dark hair, that wears a blue tam-o"-shanter. Yes, I"ve seen her--not that I like tam-o"-shanters, and I wouldn"t get one for Hilda, though she begged hard; I bought her a felt instead. Mr.
Hockheimer"s niece? Yes, he lives at The Hall, though many think he"s no right to be there; and if I"d my way, I"d say an internment camp was the right place for him. With two sons in the trenches it doesn"t give one any patience for these naturalized Germans, coming and turning out decent English folk, too, that ought to be there instead of him. It was a queer business, and people ought to make their wills properly before they come to die, instead of leaving them half-written. I"ve made mine, and divided what I"ve got equal share and share alike among my six children, so that there won"t be any quarrelling after my funeral, for I"ve told them beforehand what to expect. And people say the old Squire"s ghost haunts The Hall, and small wonder; though it"s not much use, for a ghost can"t sign a will, and he should have had the sense to do it while he was alive."
Mrs. Garside"s statements were so rambling and involved, that it took Avelyn a very long time indeed to sift the information she wanted from among the large number of superfluous details supplied by her loquacious neighbour. By dint of pertinacity and tact, however, she pieced together the following narrative.--
Pamela"s ancestors had for many generations been Squires of Lyngates, and had resided at The Hall. Her grandfather, Mr. George Reynolds, had lived there until his death, two years ago. Mrs. Garside could remember him since her girlhood--a tall, handsome man with a brown beard, who rode about the country on a favourite white horse named Champion. He had been a good landlord, and was well liked in the neighbourhood. His wife had died early, and left two children, a son and daughter. The son, Mr.
Leonard, had been a high-spirited lad, and it was said in the village that he and his father did not get on well together. There was some upset and a quarrel, the rights of which n.o.body ever knew, for the Squire was too proud to air his troubles, and kept family skeletons securely locked in their cupboards. At any rate, Mr. Leonard had gone away to Canada and started farming, and had never returned to his old home, though he had written that he was married, and, later on, that he had a daughter. This was all the news that Lyngates people had heard of him in fourteen years. Whether he had prospered or otherwise on his far-off Canadian ranch they did not know. Squire Reynolds"s other child, Miss Dora, had been a pretty girl, and her father"s favourite. Many years went by, however, before she married. She had been fond of hunting, and used to look very smart riding to hounds in her neat navy-blue habit. It was at a meet that she had first met Mr. Hockheimer.
He rented a shooting-box in the neighbourhood, and came down frequently from London for week ends. n.o.body could understand how this naturalized German had obtained such a hold over Miss Dora and her father, though it was rumoured that he had reinvested the Squire"s money for him to great advantage. Being a City man he was well acquainted with finance. Miss Dora was long past her first youth, but she was still handsome, and everyone in Lyngates had said that she was far too good for Mr.
Hockheimer. The village worthies, however, were not consulted, and the wedding took place.
A year afterwards the European war broke out. There was great comment in Lyngates on the position of Mr. Hockheimer, but he had proved himself to be a naturalized British subject, and declared he was heart and soul on the side of the Allies. He had been very energetic on local committees, and had given large sums to the Belgian Fund.
When red war flamed in Flanders, and Britain summoned all her sons to her standard, Leonard Reynolds, on his far-away ranch in the Rockies, had heard the call and answered it. He had joined one of the first Canadian contingents, and had come over the sea to "do his bit" for the Motherland, leaving his wife and child at the ranch to carry on the brave but wellnigh impossible task of keeping the home fires burning. In his pa.s.sage through England he had had thirty-six hours" leave, and had visited his father at Lyngates. The villagers had seen him again after fourteen years" absence, and had admired him in his khaki uniform. He had spoken to several of them--words of fire and patriotism and enthusiasm for the coming conflict.
Everybody lived for the newspapers in those first months of war, and Lyngates was no exception to the general rule. In farm-house and cottage they read of the retreat from Mons. Duke"s son and plough-boy, Oxford graduate and City clerk, scientist, shopman and crossing-sweeper alike, had paid the great sacrifice, and the name of Leonard Reynolds stood among them. The Squire was in bed at the time, recovering from a severe operation. The news was broken to him by an injudicious nurse at a crisis in his illness, and it proved his death-blow. In his few last gasping words he had tried to say something about a will, but those who were with him could not understand what he meant to convey. With the incoherent message still trembling on his stricken lips he had pa.s.sed away into the silence. He was buried with his ancestors in Lyngates churchyard, but there was no cross to mark the grave of his son Leonard.
The survivors of the Canadian contingent could give no details beyond the fact that a certain portion of them had been utterly wiped out by a terrific explosion. It was impossible to identify the dead. War was reaping a red harvest of human lives.
After Squire Reynolds"s funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Hockheimer had taken possession of The Hall. Though search was made everywhere the only will which could be discovered was one in the custody of the family solicitor, which was dated fifteen years back. In the briefest terms it left a certain sum of money to his daughter, and the estate of Lyngates to his son, but in the event of the death of either, the survivor was to inherit the whole property. As it had been drawn up before his son"s marriage, no mention was made in it of Leonard"s wife and child. It was a perfectly valid will, and it was duly proved, Mrs. Hockheimer succeeding to the entire estate of her late father. She lived only six months to enjoy it, and was laid to rest with her dead baby in her arms.
She had executed a will bequeathing everything to her husband, so that Mr. Hockheimer, the naturalized German, a.s.sumed absolute command of the Reynolds property.
Meanwhile, matters had gone hardly with the wife and child of Leonard Reynolds. It had been impossible for them to farm the ranch, and they had no private means. By the advice of her friends Mrs. Reynolds had sold up her few possessions and had come to England with her daughter, to find out at first hand from the lawyers whether any provision had been made for her out of the estate. The solicitors were polite and sympathetic: they acknowledged the keen injustice of the matter, but a.s.sured her that there was no redress, and, according to British law, Mr. Hockheimer had full rights of possession in the Lyngates property, while she and her child could not claim so much as a solitary farthing.
They represented the case, however, to Mr. Hockheimer, and he at once offered Mrs. Reynolds the use of a cottage on his land, together with a small annual income, and promised to pay for Pamela"s education at a day school in Harlingden. As she had no other means of livelihood, Mrs.
Reynolds had accepted this help, and had settled down at Lyngates shortly before this story begins. She was a fragile little woman, gentle and clinging in disposition, and so battered by misfortune that she was glad to rest anywhere where she could find a home. She received Mr. Hockheimer"s dole quite gratefully. With the loss of her husband life had for her practically stopped. Through her daughter it held a second-hand kind of interest. She welcomed the idea of Pamela attending a good school, and her crushed soul even began to indulge in timid little day-dreams concerning her child"s future. These hopes, pathetic and tender, were like wild sweet violets springing up over the desolation of a battle-field.
Pamela viewed the situation from an utterly different standpoint. She had inherited her grandfather"s strength of character along with the Reynolds features, and also a considerable share of his pride. Her early life in Canada had made her more independent than most English girls of her age. She considered that by all rights of justice an equal half of the Lyngates estate should have been hers, and that her uncle, Mr.
Hockheimer, had managed to steal her inheritance. She hated to accept from him as charity what she felt ought to have been her own, and she bitterly resented the patronizing att.i.tude which he adopted towards herself and her mother. She, too, had her day-dreams, and most of them centred round a time when she would be old enough to shake off this thraldom of dependence and strike out a line of her own in the world.
CHAPTER V
Ructions
By the end of a few weeks Avelyn began to feel more settled down in her new quarters at Silverside. The old pupils might regret the former regime, but she was tolerably satisfied with the new. She was in the fifth form, and found the work not too arduous, and liked Miss Kennedy, her teacher. She had been accustomed to the bustle of a large school, and, though Laura Talbot might rave against the crowded conditions, to Avelyn it was amusing to be in a room crammed full of girls. School is a separate world of its own, and often a curious one. To outsiders and to its Princ.i.p.al, Silverside might appear as an enterprise that was growing and prospering exceedingly. Its numbers had suddenly more than doubled, it had fresh teachers, and was going to build a cloak-room and a gymnasium; nothing could seemingly have more hope of success. Inwardly, however, it was a seething whirl of opposing factions. The old and the new did not readily amalgamate. The boarders were jealous of their rights, and would not yield an inch of the privileged position they had always been wont to occupy; while the Hawthorners, accustomed to the absolute democracy of a day school, could not and would not understand why boarders should expect to have any privileges at all.
Trouble began on the very second day of term. Adah, in her new capacity of head girl, had pinned a paper on the notice board announcing a general meeting of the Dramatic Society for 4.15 in the studio. The old members turned up at the time named, to find a group of Hawthorners already in possession of the room. Adah, after waiting a minute, glanced at the clock and coughed significantly; then, as this produced no result, she remarked:
"Won"t you be rather late if you"re not getting home soon?"
"We don"t much mind," returned Annie Broadside easily.
"Well, the fact is, we want to use this room," continued Adah. "We"re going to have a meeting."
"I know. That"s why we"ve come."
Adah"s eyebrows elevated themselves to an astonishing angle.
"You"ve come to our meeting?" she exclaimed incredulously.
"Certainly we have. Why not?"
Annie asked the question aggressively.
"Because you"re not members of the Dramatic."
"But we want to join."